Alcohol and Guilt
by Hellsleprechaun
Summary: After the events of 3x22, Stefan feels terrible because of what happend, he drinks all the alcohol and dissapears all night. Damon begins to grow concerned and needs to find out what is going on with his brother.


**This is set, lets say a week after the end of 3x22, I have no idea what will happen in season 4, this is just an idea.**

**I do not own the vampire diaries, it belongs to L.J Smith and the CW.**

Damon sighed in exasperation as he checked the time on the large, antique clock on the wall of the boarding house living room- again. He felt that he had done nothing this evening but check the time every five minutes. This was ridiculous, he was Damon Salvatore! He was supposed to be out having fun, or home having fun, or at least at home alone drinking good bourbon. But no, he could not do any of those things, and it was all Stefan's fault. Stefan had disappeared at some point the previous afternoon and had not been seen since. Once Damon had become concerned he had searched the whole town, every field, every alley way, and the houses of everybody Stefan knew.

Caroline was staying at the Gilbert house with Jeremy and Elena while her friend got used to life as a vampire, none of them had seen him, and Elena was not in the mood to tell him this herself because she didn't want to see anybody at the moment, him and Stefan included.

Bonnie was being creepy and mysterious. She had not made contact with any of them since bringing Klaus and Tyler back to life respectively, and restoring both to their own bodies.

_She's probably sulking over what happened to Elena and finding some way to make it your fault._

When he had asked if she had seen his brother, she had curtly told him _no _and slammed the door in his face, it felt good to be so popular.

The Mikaelsons had been beyond pissed when he turned up uninvited in the middle of the night and began interrogating them, after a few minutes of chaos, Elijah had restored order and it was quickly established that Stefan's whereabouts were a mystery to them too and that Damon was unwelcome on the property.

After that long and tiring night, he had returned home and gone to bed hoping that by morning Stefan would have returned. No such luck, and here he was for the second night in a row, waiting up for Stefan, and he did not even have a drink to entertain him.

He had come home several days ago to discover Stefan had drunk everything, and when he said _everything _that included every alcoholic drink and all of the blood in the basement. Quite an achievement, Damon had numbly commended him, of course he had been less impressed when Stefan's body decided it could not handle all that blood and decided to spew it everywhere, permanently ruining Damon's favourite bathroom towels.

He had no idea what was going on with his little brother, he understood that he was upset because of what had happened to Elena, and that she did not want to see him, but so was he. He however, was not getting drunker than he could handle and disappearing. If Rick were here, he would have asked him for advice but…

_But he isn't. _He snapped to himself, getting weepy and nostalgic was not what he needed right now.

He thought of his other friends, Mayor Lockwood? No, she wasn't exactly a parenting expert herself, even if she tried, and as far as he was aware she had no siblings. The same problem with Liz. He supposed he could ask Elijah, the guy had had five younger siblings at one point, and from what he knew, at least three of them were difficult, manipulative and possibly psychotic.

_No, living with those three, he'll have no sympathy for you._

As he was thinking this, the door opened slowly and almost silently and Stefan tip-toed in, in an attempt to be stealthy.

"Hey, Stef! How are things? Everything okay? You feel like telling me where the hell you were?" His tone became less and less cheery with each question.

"I left town for…" he clumsily checked his wrist for a watch that was not there, "a few hours."

"A few hours? Try over twenty four."

Stefan stared at him in a stupefied shock. "Are you drunk?" He asked suspiciously, his green eyes narrowed.

"No, judging from the fact that it began to smell like a brewery as soon as you came through the door, I'd say that's you." Damon informed his brother with amusement.

"Oh, Damon!" Stefan waved his hand at him, "You are your antics." He smiled fondly and stumbled past him, collapsing ungracefully onto the sofa, burying his face in the cool leather.

"Yeah, waiting here for my little brother, I'm quite the party animal." He stated with a heavy sarcasm that Stefan did not appear to pick up on. "How about you tell me all about how awesome I am, while I help you get upstairs and to bed." He suggested.

Stefan nodded once, "m'kay, you better not be trying to seduce me though." Stefan warned in a slur.

"I think you're safe on that front." Damon assured him, his brother had some very strange ideas while he was drunk.

It took the older Salvatore nearly twenty minutes to help Stefan get changed and convince him to get into his bed. Drunk Stefan was unsurprisingly not modest and kept trying to take his pants off, Damon gave up trying to convince him otherwise, after all, it was nothing he hadn't seen before.

As he was leaving the room, he was about to turn off the lights when Stefan called out to him, "love you, Damon!"

The dark haired vampire stared at his younger brother with a mixture of shock, amusement and a strange warm feeling that was rapidly spreading through his gut.

Stefan was beaming at him drunkenly, waiting for a response. "Ditto."

"No!" Stefan exploded unexpectedly, "no, no, don't say _ditto_, that's what… Patrick used to say."

"Who the hell is Patrick?" Damon demanded.

"And then when he died and Whoopi tried to tell Demi Moore that he loved her, she … didn't believe her, because he always said _ditto_. Don't say ditto." Stefan advised.

"I am never letting you watch _ghost _again," Damon vowed seriously, he was not dealing with this insane affectionate Stefan on a regular basis, no matter how many blackmailing opportunities it opened up.

"Love you." Stefan repeated, glowering at his older brother expectantly.

Damon rolled his eyes, "love you too, Stefan."

He chuckled once as he heard Stefan's childish sniggering as soon as he closed the door behind him.

The next morning Stefan was woken abruptly by a loud screeching noise. He sat bolt up right in bed and regretted the movement almost instantly as he felt like his head was going to explode.

He scowled wrathfully at Damon, who was seated in the chair beneath his window, emitting bizarre and hideous, pterodactyl-like noises.

"Morning, sunshine." Damon greeted, looking annoyingly happy, while taking a sip of his coffee. "I made you some too," he passed a steaming mug of goodness over to Stefan, who accepted it gratefully.

"Why are you waking me up? In fact, better question, why are you pretending to be a dinosaur?"

Damon shrugged, as if to say _why not? _"How much did I drink last night?" He inquired with dread.

"That depends, do you remember last night?"

"Vaguely."

"That should tell you all you need to know." It seemed as though his voice was chipper and alert simply to irritate Stefan.

"Oh God!" He groaned.

"What?" Damon was definitely enjoying this far too much.

"I think I exposed myself to an old lady."

Damon snorted loudly and began to laugh hysterically, "upstairs or down?" He got out between guffaws.

"Downstairs." He admitted with shame.

Damon laughed even harder, "it's not funny!" He insisted.

"Oh God, yes it is." His brother disagreed happily.

"Oh… I can never leave this house again." His voice was muffled as he had buried his face in his hands. Damon decided it would not be wise to tell Stefan how pleased the idea of him staying in the house forever made him. It would certainly mean no more waiting up for him to stagger home.

"Where were you, anyway?" He inquired, taking the conversation to a more serious level.

"I was at a bar in this… crappy little town, it made this place seem like Tokyo."

"Where you…." Damon's eyebrows crinkled as he considered how to phrase his next question. "Where you going to leave town?"

Anyone else would not have been able to see past Stefan's stoic exterior, but Damon had known him for 163 years, he could read him like a book. "I considered it." He admitted, but his brother could see that he had done more than consider it.

"So you were just going to disappear and leave everything behind? This house, your car, Elena,… Caroline?"

Stefan raised an eyebrow at him in confusion, "what does Caroline have to do with this?"

"Caroline thinks of you as like a brother, she cares about you… a lot. You can't just abandon her, what would she do without you?"

Both brothers avoided each others gaze as Stefan realised that they were not talking about Caroline.

"I came back." He whispered, finally looking at Damon. Damon did not seem to be able to hide his feelings, for the first time in a long time that Stefan remembered, his brother appeared vulnerable.

"I came back." He repeated, a sick feeling building in his stomach, he and Damon argued a lot, but he was almost sure that Damon had never looked at him like this, as though he had let him down. No, that wasn't right, Damon often glared at him like he'd disappointed him. This time it was more like Damon had needed him and he had not been there.

_Which is exactly what it was._

"Damon… I'm sorry." To his chagrin he heard a very audible crack in his voice. To make matters worse, the tears he had been holding back all week began to fall in a heavy stream.

Damon rushed to the bed and sat beside him, "what is it?" He demanded, he sounded panicked. He laid a hand on Stefan's shoulder to try and calm him, but his crying only intensified.

"I'm…so…sorry, Dam…on. I.. I didn't…I couldn't…" He chocked off on a long sob.

"Hey, hey, it's okay. You came back." Damon echoed his earlier words, sure he was mad because of what Stefan had done, but it hardly warranted this reaction from his brother.

As Stefan's weeping continued, Damon sighed and wrapped both arms around Stefan, pulling him close. He could feel each sob racking his body, "I'm not mad." He lied, he could be annoyed at his little brother later, right now he needed to find out what the hell was going on.

"It's not … that." He sniffled, staring up at Damon with guilt-ridden green eyes.

Before he could ask what it was, Stefan carried on, "I just let her die. I…she begged me to save Matt first… and I did. Now she's a vampire… she never wanted to… she… you loved her and now she won't talk to you, and it's all my fault…I'm sorry."

Damon hugged him tighter. "she never would have forgiven you if you'd left Matt to die."

"But at least she'd be alive." Stefan repeated his own words back at him. "You'd have saved her."

"That's crap, Stef, alright. If you had saved Matt instead of her it wouldn't make anything better, it would just mean that everyone would be grieving for him. At least this way, you saved Matt's life and Elena's still alive. She has Jeremy, and Bonnie and Caroline to help her through this, she's going to be okay." he attempted to reassure his brother.

"Buts she won't see me or you. You didn't do anything wrong. I'm sorry."

"If you apologise one more time, I'm going to kill you." Damon promised with a small smile.

Stefan returned it with a wobbly one of his own.

"I don't care how much you're hating yourself, you don't get to just leave us all behind. I should send you to therapy, you can bitch to your therapist about how much you loathe yourself and she can give you happy pills or something." Damon mocked with a teasing smirk.

"Hate you." Stefan laughed once.

"No you don't, if fact last night, you told me all about how much you love me." Damon reminded him with an evil grin.

Stefan flushed as memory flooded back to him, "oh yeah." he mumbled sheepishly as he also recalled rambling on about _ghost_.

Elena stared at herself in the mirror, turning from one side to the other, trying to find any difference in her face, anything that suggested she was different. She breathed deeply as she wondered what he parents would think of her if they could see her now.

She turned suddenly as she heard a noise from the doorway and almost smiled, she would never have detected that as a human.

"Damon. What are you doing here?" She asked, not unkindly.

"I need to talk to you."

"I don't want to see anybody ,Damon. I need some time to-"

"This isn't about you, Elena. It's about Stefan."

She stopped and waited for him to continue, there was no point in arguing with him even if she wanted to. If it was important enough that he came to her now to talk about it, she would not be able to discourage him.

"Would you let him see you? I know you can't exactly-"

"No." She cut him off, her voice soft. "I've already told you, I don't want to see anybody."

"You heard he disappeared yesterday."

"Is he okay?" Her voice was filled with concern for her… well she wasn't sure how exactly to categorise her and Stefan's relationship.

"Define _fine_."

She rolled her eyes at his obvious pleasure with his little rhyme. "Is he hurt?"

"No, he rolled home drunk. This morning he… he's devastated. I know you must be mad right now but-"

She cut him off again, he began to wonder if it would be possible for either of them to finish a sentence before the other interrupted them.

"I'm not mad…I just need time. I need to get used to…"she gestured at her body, "this. I need to come to terms with everything before I can even think about anything else."

"He… he blames himself for everything that happened. He feels responsible for what happened to you. He tried to leave town. Look" he pleaded," just see him once. I won't ask for anything else, talk to him once, tell him that you don't hate him. Please."

Elena watched him for along moment, his large eyes were desperate and pleading, she considered what she would do if she were in Damon's place and nodded once.

"What are we doing here, Damon?" Stefan wondered, glaring at his older brother with suspicion. "She doesn't want to see anyone." He reminded him, as though he might simply have forgotten.

"Apparently she wants to see you."

Damon sat in the kitchen with Caroline and Jeremy while Stefan went upstairs to see Elena. "Hey," he greeted her uncertainly.

"Hi, Stefan."

"I thought you didn't want to see either of us."

"I don't, but it's not because I blame you for what happened, okay? I need to sort my own feelings out before I deal with anyone else's and I'm sorry if that's selfish but…" She trailed off.

"It's not selfish."

She scoffed," you'd say that no matter what the situation."

"I'm sorry, Elena. I never meant for this to happen." He apologised sincerely.

"This wasn't your fault, Stefan. This happened because of a lot of things: because of what Esther did to Alaric, because of what Klaus did to me, because Meredith gave me vampire blood, because Jeremy and Matt decided to get me out of town and because Rebekah sent the car off the bridge." She sighed, "if I was going to blame everybody involved for what happened, I'd never speak to anyone again. Nobody intended for this to happen and I'm not holding grudges. Anyway, even if I was, I wouldn't be holding one against you. I asked you to save Matt instead of me, I'd rather live as a vampire than have let matt die."

"But I should have-"

"No, you shouldn't. You did the right thing and I'm grateful, so is Matt." She assured him.

"Do you want me to leave now?" He asked sadly, already knowing her reply.

"I'll see you soon." She promised.

"Alright," he nodded sombrely and turned to leave the room.

"For the record, you should thank Damon, he came here earlier and told me that you were… upset." She called before he could go.

He turned back and smiled at her, grateful that she had told him, not that he could ever let Damon know he knew, but still.

Later that evening the Salvatores sat in their living room, Damon with a glass of bourbon in his hand, Stefan slurping from a blood bag. The younger Salvatore rolled his eyes as, once again, Damon wafted the smell of the alcohol towards him, fully aware that after last night Stefan never wanted to see another drink again.

"Hey, Stef, _Ghost _is on, your favourite movie." He taunted evilly.

"It is not my favourite movie. I saw it once, I was with Lexi, she insisted." he excused himself.

"Please! Lexi would not have gone to see that movie willingly, admit it, you dragged her to go and see it with you."

"Shut up." He mumbled as Damon began to laugh at him.

**The end.**

**I hadn't written anything about the Salvatores in a while and Ilovevampirediaries, asked if I could write some more on them. **

**I imagine Stefan is going to feel bad about what happened to Elena, although she'd rather be a vampire than have let Matt die.**

**Did anyone else think that she was only trapped by her seat belt, all he had to do was snap it and she could have swam out after him? I decided not to dwell on that point in this story.**

**Please review.**


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